THE REBIBLICANS -- The Ruling Fundamentalist Wing -- Is All That Remains Of The GOP

Gingrich's First Advice for GOP: Fight for Nation's Religious Heritage

June 09, 2009 By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

When's the last time you saw a Republican say that the GOP's first step back to power relies on it fighting to recover the nation's religious heritage? Check out this clip from Newt Gingrich's keynote speech at last night's Republican Senate-House Dinner. He discusses the need to restore America's religious heritage ahead of economic and national security issues.

It's fascinating that religious conservatives are on the outs with the GOP's Washington-based leadership but that Republicans possibly running for president in 2012—Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee—all have very strong ties to that segment of the party's base.

GOP Losses Span Nearly All Demographic GroupsOnly frequent churchgoers show no decline in support since 2001

May 18, 2009

Since the first year of George W. Bush's presidency in 2001, the Republican Party has maintained its support only among frequent churchgoers, with conservatives and senior citizens showing minimal decline.

The GOP has generally avoided significant losses among only its most loyal groups, including frequent churchgoers and self-identified conservatives. The Republican Party maintains majority support among these two groups.

"Unfortunately for Texas Republicans, Rick Perry and his spokesman are utilizing the same divisive, non-substantive rhetoric that fueled huge losses in 2006 and 2008 for Republicans in Texas and nationally," said Hutchison spokesman Hans Klingler.

The state Republican primary is dominated by social conservatives who disagree with Hutchison on abortion and embryonic stem cell research. So Hutchison will have to attract middle-of-the-road Republican voters to the primary. Meanwhile, Perry, already backed by social conservatives, has skewed even further to the right in his remarks to keep that base on his side.

The South now accounts for a greater share of Republican strength than at virtually any time since the party's founding. That base is too narrow, as even Republicans know.

Demographically, the forces at work have chipped away at what was once a GOP-leaning majority in the country. The most important is minorities' rising share of the vote. Whites accounted for 76 percent of the overall electorate last November, down from 85 percent in 1988.

Projections show young voters will become increasingly diverse. They are also less religious and more culturally liberal, two indicators of Democratic support.

GOP strategist Mike Murphy described this in Time magazine as a coming Republican ice age. Republicans will need a major shift to begin to reverse these trends.

"I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that's the way it is, period."

-- Pat Robertson

"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (Gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything!"

-- Rick Santorum

"Feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society."

The Republicans are faulting President Obama for not taking a "strong enough stand" in support of the freedom marchers in Iran. Yet if the Republican/Religious Right/Neoconservative agenda had come to full fruition over the last 35 years the Republicans would have plunged America into our own version of the misbegotten theocracy destroying Iran today. I know. As a former Religious Right leader I worked to make America "safe" for "Christian values" and dangerous to everyone else. Thankfully I, and those like me, failed.

Had we succeeded America would be another version of Iran. Instead of people like James Dobson and Pat Robertson having become marginalized they'd be sitting in Washington advising whomever was the next Republican president. Instead of environmental protection and new mileage standards for cars there would be new anti-gay laws on the books.

What are the real lessons of Iran for the USA?

1) Don't mix religion and politics.

2) Thank God for the separation of church and state.

3) The Republicans are utter hypocrites.

Until I got out of the religious right (in the mid-1980s) I was both a leader of the so-called pro-life movement and a part of a Republican Party hate machine masquerading as the moral conscience of America.

If the far right of the Republican Party and we of the Religious Right had had our way by now there would be a constitutional amendment and/or laws forcing prayer in schools, disenfranchising gay men and women, banning all abortions under penalty of death, banning gay men and women from serving in the military, launching a neoconservative led and religious right backed holy war against Islam, fixing Israel's borders permanently to incorporate all the land taken in 1967 forever into a "Greater Israel" based on the "fact" that "God gave the Jews" the land "forever," capital punishment would be used routinely to punish a variety of crimes including being gay, civil rights for blacks, women, gays, unions would be in retreat, and -- other than enforcing "morality" - George W. Bush's style of "free market" non-governance would be permanent.

Think this is all far fetched? Then you never sat in secret meetings with Pat Robertson or the late Dr. Kennedy -- as I did when I was a religious right leader -- fomenting plans to "bring America back to God." If we'd won America would be a slicker more dangerous version of Iran.

Picture America if Sarah Palin was president, both houses of Congress had a deep Republican majority, and the last 30 years of appointments to the Supreme Court had all been far right choices. Picture Fox News as the only TV news with access to the government, and the editors of the New York Times in jail for "treason."

The theocratic repression in Iran is a reminder that there can be no freedom without secular government

By Michael LindJune 23, 2009

Secular government is the basis of both liberty and democracy. It is important to emphasize this, because of the tendency to portray the struggle in Iran in terms of a global conflict between democracy and dictatorship. Set aside, for a moment, the fact that former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi was one of four candidates, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who were approved to run as presidential candidates last May by the clerics of Iran's Guardian Council. It does not take away from the heroism of Mousavi or his followers to point out that if Ahmadinejad stole the election he stole an election that was already rigged.

The larger issue is the question of what comes first: separation of church and state, or democracy. America's Founders had no doubts on that score. Democracy requires citizens who are free from "superstition" and "priestcraft," to use 18th-century language. Americans have usually believed that religion can play a constructive role in a democratic republic by encouraging moral behavior. But in the traditional American view, theocratic democracy is nothing more than majoritarian tyranny, whether the clerics have a formal role in the state or merely tell the voters how to vote. And even secular democracy is not a goal in itself. It is merely a means to an end: the protection of natural rights.

The idea of universal, basic natural human rights is incompatible with theocracy in any form. While Christians and adherents of other religions can believe in natural rights, the theory of natural rights itself, influenced by ancient Greek sophists and Epicureans, is inherently secular. Natural rights by definition are those that ordinary people, using only their reason, can agree upon -- things like life and liberty and property or happiness, meaning access to subsistence. The list of natural rights varies from thinker to thinker, but they all have one thing in common -- they are not revealed by a divine intelligence to a prophet or priests.

Frustration is brewing within the GOP base. Clearly divided on the so-called 'social issues', setting religious conservatives apart from the Schwarzenegger moderate wing of the party, many Republicans are demanding that these internal issues be set straight.

As written in Sunday's Politico, the far-right is on the verge of taking over:

Quote:

Rank-and-file Republicans remain, by all indications, staunchly conservative, and they appear to have no desire to moderate their views. GOP activists and operatives say they hear intense anger at the White House and at the party’s own leaders on familiar issues – taxes, homosexuality, and immigration. Within the party, conservative groups have grown stronger absent the emergence of any organized moderate faction.

There is little appetite for compromise on what many see as core issues, and the road to the presidential nomination lies – as always – through a series of states where the conservative base holds sway, and where the anger appears to be, if anything, particularly intense.

Many political scientists might choose the lazy road and compare this movement on the right to that which started on the left in late-2002. So eventually these conservatives are going to form a grassroots movement that will bring the Republican back to power, right? Actually, from a demographic standpoint, the people organizing these anti-tax rallies and fighting same-sex marriage are much older than those who formed our grassroots movement on the left. We are talking about a dying breed of conservatives whose social views run contrary to more people here in the 21st century. We are a much more tolerant country than we were 40 years ago. We elected our first black president. It's easier today for homosexual men and women to be open about their orientation. We support embryonic stem cell research. Clearly, with each passing year, there are less and less people within the far-right conservative movement to counter-balance this underlying trend towards a more progressive, open society.

That is the question that I and Mike from the Big Stick have been trying to answer. In a recent post, Mike had this to say about social liberals (meaning, those in favor of same-sex marriage or abortion rights):

Quote:

"The Republican Party can always use more members and if they can be convinced to pull the lever for Republican candidates most of the time, that’s a good thing. What continues to concern me though is what Dennis’ idea of ‘accept’ means. Does it mean that we will accept social liberals in the way that they were accepted 30 years ago? That would mean taking their vote on matters of fiscal policy, national security and some domestic issue while losing it on abortion and gay marriage. That’s an arrangement I can certainly live with."

What I think Dennis is looking for is not just mere acceptance of social liberals. He wants the Republican Party adopt their positions, or at least move significantly towards them. That is a desire I have a lot of trouble embracing. I will be the first to admit that Republican does not have to equate to conservative. That’s probably why I will always call myself a conservative first and a Republican second because for me personally the conservatism is more important and the party is simply a vehicle for carrying it forward. But even if we allow for more ‘moderate’ views within the GOP, do abortion rights and gay marriage fit within a reasonable Republican platform?

So, Mike thinks its a good thing to be accepting of people who might have different views on social issues, but just don’t start getting uppity and ask to change things.

Part of Mike’s reasoning is that opposition to gay marriage, heck opposition to being gay is part and parcel of the Republican way of living. I know that I should read more of the conservative greats like Edmund Burke or Russell Kirk, but I’m pretty sure they had very little to say on those issues.

The reason the current GOP tends to be against gay rights as a whole is not because it was that way from the beginning, but because social conservatives got organized and became involved in local and state parties as well as making changes in the national party’s platform.

Mike also is not very approving of the fact that I or others might want to press for change in the GOP. I would love if the GOP were gay-friendly, but I would be happy if it just adopted a live-and-let-live policy. On abortion, even though I tend to be pro-choice, I respect my friends that are pro-life and think they have good points. I just wish that we would allow that those who are pro-choice be respected and not driven out of the party.

And this is the problem: social conservatism has become the price of admission for taking part in the GOP. I’ve heard more than one person say that everyone is welcome to be a part of the Republican Party, as long as one doesn’t touch was has become the keystone of the modern GOP, social conservatism.

Of course, what is happening is that more and more people are scoffing at paying the price. I’ve known too many of my fellow gay men and lesbians who would be great Republicans, but have left the party or will never join because of the intolerant atmosphere they percieve coming from the GOP. There are also too many young folks who see such intolerance as straight-up hate, having nothing to do with being Republican or conservative. As Ian Tanner recently noted:

When it comes to personal politics, my generation is much more in favor of socially liberal record. One of the biggest issues is Gay Marriage. Im not going to give my opinion on the subject just yet, that’s another post in the work- but I will say civil unions are a joke.

Yes, I do want change in the GOP when it comes to gay issues. What does it have to do with my Republican values? Everything. This party was started in part on the issue of slavery, or more to the point on finding ways to abolish slavery. This party began by believing in simple equality, hardly a leftish notion. But somehow, we have forgotten those values and now think that there are some people that are “second-class.” We have candidates that run on “traditional values” and spread fear about those who are simply different. I think the party should be supportive or two people entering into a conserving institution like marriage.

Yeah, I want to change things in the GOP. Is that bad? No. Social conservatives have been doing that for 30 years.

Economic news, the possibility of health-care reform and even the death of "king of pop" Michael Jackson have dominated the headlines lately. But quietly, beneath the surface, the "culture wars" continue to percolate.

Leaders of the Religious Right aren't real happy with the current situation. President Barack Obama remains popular. Same-sex marriage is now legal in six states, and others are considering it. Abortion is still legal, and public schools aren't pushing fundamentalist Christianity.

What to do? Form a federation!

Several Religious Right organizations came together June 30 here in Washington to announce the formation of the "Freedom Federation" and to unveil a "Declaration of American Values," a document reflecting the same obsessions that have animated the Religious Right for decades: opposition to abortion, opposition to gay rights, xenophobia, opposition to church-state separation, etc.

The event didn't get much ink in the secular press, but The Christian Post ran a piece quoting several of the major players. I was amused by former Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell's insistence that the Federation is interested in "a process of addition and multiplication, not subtraction and division."

So the Religious Right now intends to bring people together by highlighting the same issues it has exploited for decades to divide Americans? Call me skeptical.

Groups joining this effort include the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, Liberty University, the Family Research Council, Liberty Counsel, Vision America, Concerned Women for America, the American Family Association, Catholic Online, the Traditional Values Coalition and a host of lesser lights. The federation doesn't plan to hire a staff or open and office, and it's unclear what the next step will be. I have been unable to even find a Web site for this federation.

Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank, who specializes in a daily dose of snark, seemed under whelmed. Dredging up the inevitable "Star Trek" comparison, Milbank seemed suspicious of the Federation's claims that it is politically neutral.

"While `we have no allegiance as a federation to either party,' as Blackwell put it, federation politics are no secret," wrote Milbank. "Among the many others signed on to the federation are Gary Bauer's Campaign for Working Families, which is at the moment working on a campaign to `stop Obama's socialism'; Lafferty's Traditional Values Coalition, which is trying to stop `Obamunists' from destroying private health care; Exodus International, which promises `freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ'; Morning Star Ministries, which recently hosted the Spiritual Warfare Conference; and the American Family Association, which is promoting a boycott of Pepsi for supporting `homosexual activists.'"

In other words, despite the fancy name and all of the rhetoric, this really is your father's Religious Right. Yawn. Nothing new here.

Milbank noted that several of the speakers at the event made "Star Trek" comparisons, trying to hitch their movement to the popular summer film. I haven't seen the movie, but as a kid I did enjoy the original "Trek." I have some advice for activists interested in opposing the tired and repressive agenda of the Religious Right: Ready the photon torpedoes.